Blue Watercolor Wedding Cake

09 Wednesday May 2018

Tags

blue wedding cake, Red velvet cake, tiered cake, watercolor cake, white chocolate buttercream

I just love the watercolor buttercream trend…I did this cake last year for a lovely couple who placed it at the bride’s table at their reception. The dessert table included an abundance of cookies and gourmet cupcakes, but this beauty was reserved just for the wedding party…neat idea.

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The 2-tiered cake is 8″-6″, all red velvet confetti (groom’s choice) with cream cheese buttercream between the layers and white chocolate buttercream. To get the watercolor effect, I first iced the cake in a neutral gray buttercream. I then tinted more buttercream varying hues of blues and grays (with a touch of violet) and piped random thick horizontal stripes of it all around the cake. With a smoothing tool (I used a bench scraper), I slowly turned the cake as I smoothed the icing out, blending the colors together.

Really quite a simple technique…the key is not to *mess* with it too much, or you lose the random look.

The bride asked me to include the small bride and groom topper (top pic), which was used by the groom’s grandmother on her wedding cake. Cool throwback touch with the modern cake design.

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Congrats on your nuptials, Erika and Sean!! It was an honor to make your special cake!

Ice Cream & Sprinkles Birthday Party!

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by Laurie in Cakes, Cookies, Cupcakes

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Tags

drip cake, homemade marshmallow fondant, ice cream cone cake pops, Pink Velvet Cake, tiered cake, Vanilla-bean cake

Ok, this theme for a little girl’s birthday party is just TOO CUTE!

The client called and asked if I would help her with an ice-cream-and-sprinkles-themed 3rd birthday party for her adorable daughter, Mackenzie. She needed coordinating cake, cake pops, cupcakes, and cookies to serve about 70 people (whew!).

Her color scheme included mint green and light pink, so I took those colors and got to work.

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The treats for the 70-or-so guests included this tiered cake (8″ pink velvet and 10″ vanilla bean)….

cake pops made with mini ice cream cones (so adorable!)….

cupcakes baked in cones with creamy swirls of multi-colored buttercream….

and cookies.

The tiered drip cake was so fun to do…and so popular right now! The melting ice cream cone topper is simply a huge cake pop made in a sugar cone. I filled the cone with cake and drizzled it with pink melting chocolate. I also inserted a cake pop stick to ensure it would sit securely on the cake.

The pink drip is white chocolate ganache with pink gel color, smoothed over the top and dripped down the sides of the cake. And, of course, sprinkles (actually sequins)….LOTS of sprinkles!

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I covered the bottom of the top tier with MORE sprinkles and a ruffly buttercream border. The #3 on top and name plate on the side are cut from homemade marshmallow fondant.

The cupcakes and cake pops are made from the same cake flavors as the cake. Cupcakes are baked in regular-sized cake cones, which is always a little more difficult than it seems as they take so long to bake (about 2x the batter as a normal cupcake) and the cone has a tendency to absorb the moisture of the cupcake after it bakes and gets a little soft. But cover them with a healthy swirl of silky buttercream, and all is good…

Instead of a stick, the cake pops are made in mini-cones and then dipped in white chocolate melts tinted mint green and pale pink–so cute! These we’re actually much easier than a normal cake pop as the drips down the sides added to the melting ice cream cone look :0).

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This was such a fun themed party, and the party set-up at the client’s house was fabulous (wish I had a good picture, but they all turned out too dark).

Hope you had a great 3rd birthday, Mackenzie! I loved making your treats!!

Tiered Rosette Wedding Cake

13 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by Laurie in Cakes

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Tags

double chocolate cake, rosette wedding cake, salted caramel filling, tiered cake, vanilla-bean frosting, White velvet cake

A lovely bride-to-be came to me last spring to order a cake for her summer wedding. She wanted the cake to reflect her beautifully designed wedding dress with a skirt of soft, rosette shaped ruffles.

After discussing a fondant rosette cake, she decided on a 3-tiered cake covered with buttercream rosettes (she also needed 2 half-sheet cutting cakes to provide enough servings for her guests).

The main cake is 3-tiered (12-9-6″). The top and bottom tiers have 3-layers each and the middle 9″-tier has 4-layers, just to add some interest in height. Each tier has alternating double-chocolate and white velvet cakes and salted caramel cream filling. The icing is an ivory vanilla-bean buttercream.

After a crumb coat of silky buttercream, I added the rosettes with a Wilton 1M tip. The icing was a mix of sweeter, stiffer American buttercream and less-sweet, silky Swiss meringue buttercream…I decided this was the perfect combo to give the icing the creaminess and stability I wanted for the rosettes to be nice and smooth AND to hold their shape in the July heat.

Although the cake isn’t all that big (12″ base cake and about 17″ tall), it got surprisingly HEAVY very quickly with all of that buttercream! Once it was finished, it was all I could do to move it into my fridge!

The cutting cakes were 2-layers each, same flavors as the main cake. I added a rosette border around the top to mirror the theme and did a rough ice on the sides for a rustic look.